Authentic, Fake or Mistaken Identity?
Creation, Recreation, Deception and Forgery in Music
International Musicological Conference
Ljubljana, 21–22 October 2021
The word ‘authentic’ has become controversial among musicians in recent years because of its use as a term for the historically informed performance of music. Instead, this conference will focus on its seemingly more straightforward meaning, denoting a musical work, instrument or other artefact that is proved to be genuine, and to its opposite, an artefact created with intent to deceive. Such fakes or forgeries in music, whether compositions, documents or musical instruments are not so uncommon as one would expect, though scholarly investigations to unmask them are still rare. Furthermore, there are multiple grey areas to be investigated, covering the misdating, misattribution and misidentification of musical artefacts of all types, the process of borrowing, arranging and reuse of compositions, or techniques of deception in composition.
This conference will bring together scholars from a range of backgrounds whose work sheds light on creation, recreation, deception and forgery in music. It offers an opportunity to stimulate and deepen our critical approaches to questions of authenticity, authorship, identity and aesthetic judgement in musical history. We invite papers from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives on any topic related to these concepts, including but not limited to:
- authenticity in music
- forgery in music and musical instrument making
- the detection of fake music, musical manuscripts and prints or instruments
- cases of misattribution, misidentification and misappropriation of music
- the process of borrowing, arranging, adapting or reuse of music
- deception in musical composition
The official language of the conference is English.
The conference organised by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Musicology (represented by Dr Metoda Kokole) will take place on 21–22 October 2021 in Ljubljana at Novi trg in the core of the historic centre of the Slovenian capital.
The selection process of received proposals was concluded in early October 2020. Out of numerous proposals (received were twice as many as the Institute of Musicology can possibly host) the scientific committee chose 24 papers and decided to slightly narrow the focus of the meeting, leaving out the related arts.
The conference will be in hybrid form (mostly through Zoom application).
The link to join Webinar on Thursday, 21 October, is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84164752772?pwd=SzhnMmc1R2UzU2s0N2dlOVpsemNRdz09
The link to join Webinar on Friday, 22 October, is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85364742125?pwd=akhxQStaTXp4NWdYazNIYmhlcHRTQT09
Metoda Kokole (main organiser)